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Matt Van Swol @mattvanswol - I keep getting asked why I'm so angry about repeat-offender crime.
This photo is why.
I grew up in a country where childhood felt free.
Not perfect, free.
We hopped on our bikes after breakfast and didn’t come home until the streetlights flicked on.
No phones.
No “Find My iPhone.”
Just a bunch of kids pedaling through the neighborhood, cutting through yards, racing down hills, stopping at a friend’s house because you saw their bike thrown in the grass out front and knew they were home.
We went to public pools with a diving board and a high dive.
We played soccer in the front yard with whoever happened to be outside.
Kids you knew from school, kids you only knew because you saw them every summer riding past your house.
Parents talked on the porch, or they didn’t...
...because it was normal to assume your kids would ALWAYS come home in one piece
That’s the America I knew.
My kids are not growing up in that America.
I don’t get to just be “the parent yelling, ‘Be home by dinner!’